Physician's Assistant - Psychiatry - Sahlem Lab

School of Medicine

Established in 1930, Duke University School of Medicine is the youngest of the nation's top medical schools. Ranked sixth among medical schools in the nation, the School takes pride in being an inclusive community of outstanding learners, investigators, clinicians, and staff where interdisciplinary collaboration is embraced and great ideas accelerate translation of fundamental scientific discoveries to improve human health locally and around the globe. Composed of more than 2,600 faculty physicians and researchers, nearly 2,000 students, and more than 6,200 staff, the Duke University School of Medicine along with the Duke University School of Nursing, and Duke University Health System comprise Duke Health, a world-class academic medical center. The Health System encompasses Duke University Hospital, Duke Regional Hospital, Duke Raleigh Hospital, Duke Health Integrated Practice, Duke Primary Care, Duke Home Care and Hospice, Duke Health and Wellness, and multiple affiliations.

The Duke Psychiatric Advanced Clinical-Translational Idea Lab (PACTiLab) utilizes a multidisciplinary collaborative team to focus on the translational development of new treatments for psychiatric illnesses (with a special emphasis on addictive and mood disorders). Our mission is to take mechanistic ideas into the clinical-research setting in the hopes of traversing the translational bridge (performing human laboratory trials, translational treatment trials from phase-1 to phase-3, and research aimed at more directly improving clinical care).

Our group embraces the tripartite academic medicine mission. Lab-members are subsequently encouraged to advance science through research, teach what they know, and improve clinical care through treatment trials. The lab has expertise in the use of neuromodulation techniques including repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), but is agnostic regarding treatment modality, focused rather on any intervention that has the potential to improve how we treat psychiatric disorders.

We are excited to invite a Physician Assistant or Nurse Practitioner to join the team and help manage our clinical-translational program in psychiatry. The successful candidate will have strong interpersonal and clinical skills and have a strong drive to improve both our understanding of psychiatric illness, and also our ability to treat it. This will initially be a 100% clinical-research position, though there may be room for a hybrid clinical-research / clinical position in the future. No research experience is needed as the successful candidate will work closely with the lab's faculty to develop and refine research skills.

The primary job responsibilities include:

-Interfacing with Duke and community clinics for clinical-research participant recruitment and enrollment.

-Performing enrollment screening visits (structured psychiatric interviews, clinical histories and physicals, lab and imaging review).

-Delivering structured psychotherapy (Motivational Enhancement Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, etc.).

-Performing clinical assessments (including structured outcome assessments and adverse event assessments).

-Clinically managing adverse events and urgent clinical issues (such as suicidality) in the clinical research studies.

-Supervising and delivering repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) and other interventions such as study-medications.

-Assisting in the review and design of research protocols.

Learning opportunities include the following:

-Clinical trial design and conduct.

-Structured assessments (which are both useful in research and clinical care).

-Structured psychotherapy (which are both useful in research and clinical care).

-Management of clinical-research participants (research-patients).

-Literature searches and summary.

-Administration of repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS).

-Presentation preparation and manuscript writing.

-General scientific processes including behavioral data analysis.

-Other research and clinical skills.

-Of note, there will be protected time for mutually agreed upon career development projects and learning opportunities as above.

This will be a 100% FTE position.

Minimum Qualifications

Education

Work requires a bachelor's degree in Health Science and a Physician Assistant Certificate of Registration with the North Carolina Medical Board or be certification eligible, and be certified as a Physician Assistant by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants.

Experience

None required above education/training requirement. OR AN EQUIVALENT COMBINATION OF RELEVANT EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE

Duke is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual's age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or veteran status.

Duke aspires to create a community built on collaboration, innovation, creativity, and belonging. Our collective success depends on the robust exchange of ideas-an exchange that is best when the rich diversity of our perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences flourishes. To achieve this exchange, it is essential that all members of the community feel secure and welcome, that the contributions of all individuals are respected, and that all voices are heard. All members of our community have a responsibility to uphold these values.

Essential Physical Job Functions: Certain jobs at Duke University and Duke University Health System may include essentialjob functions that require specific physical and/or mental abilities. Additional information and provision for requests for reasonable accommodation will be provided by each hiring department.